"O dear!" thought Miles, "I'm a man, not a nurse." He never considered that it was any kindness on his new guardians' part when, instead of putting him to heavy outdoor tasks, they set him to minding the baby and helping about the house. "Like a girl," Miles told himself, with an indignant sniff. It was not two weeks since he left the sick-house, and his legs were still a little uncertain, but he was sure he was fit to work again, or, at any rate, fit to run away and play with the other boys.
But he took the baby now and walked forth meekly, because he lived in some dread of Mistress Elizabeth Hopkins. She was a thin-lipped, energetic young woman, who mended Miles's clothes scrupulously, and, with equal conscientiousness, boxed his ears whenever he tracked dirt on her clean floors. Her sharp tongue, though, he feared more than her hands, for Mistress Hopkins scolded at everything and everybody; indeed, the only members of the household whom her words never troubled were Oceanus, who was so young he just blinked his eyes when she talked, and Master Hopkins, on whom people's fretting had as much effect as it would have had upon the great rock at the landing place.
After all, Miles was rather glad to get out into the air, away from the living room, where Mistress Hopkins was already chiding Constance. The morning was fair and warm, with no wind stirring, and the harbor sparkled invitingly, so, shouldering the unwelcome Damaris, he started happily to the shore.
But his contentment speedily had an end, for, not halfway to the landing, he was overtaken by Francis Billington, Jack Cooke, and Joe Rogers, who at once addressed him in disrespectful wise. "Ho, Miles, that's brave work, tending a baby," jeered Francis.
"You meddle with your own matters," Miles replied sulkily.
"Come with us, Miles," Jack put in pacifically. "We're going along shore to the first brook—"
"We do not want a baby with us," Joe interrupted.
"You might stay with me, Jack," Miles pleaded, as the others turned away.
Jack, a freckled little fellow with merry eyes, dug the heel of his shoe into the dirt. "The other lads will be having sport," he said half-heartedly.